Mayawati, while pointing out that her party will review her party's alliance with SP, said the decision to ally with arch rivals did not yield the desired result.

Mayawati

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Monday blamed her party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Dal for the rout in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls that saw the Gathbandhan failing to get the desired result. While the alliance had won just 15 seats out of 80, BJP alone got 62, while its partner Apna Dal (Sonelal), won from 2 seats.

Mayawati, while pointing out that her party will review her party’s alliance with SP, said the decision to ally with arch rivals did not yield the desired result. Blaming SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for the electoral debacle, Mayawati said that the latter failed to arrest the split of Yadav votes. If the alliance breaks, this would mean that the BSP will contest alone in upcoming Assembly bypolls in 11 constituencies, something that some media reports claim Mayawati has already signalled to her party leaders. This, however, could not be independently verified.

On Sunday, the BSP supremo had removed election coordinators from six states as also state presidents of two states, for poor results of the party in the recently concluded general elections. She sacked coordinators of Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Odisha. Mayawati also removed the Delhi and Madhya Pradesh state presidents. The party failed to win any seat in these states.

BSP sources on today’s meeting of party leaders: It was a closed door review meeting, election results were discussed. It was analysed why we lost, how we lost. Several issues including EVMs were discussed. No decision or discussion took place on the future of Gathbandhan. pic.twitter.com/6kPrPAOU2q

Before elections, the party had entered into an electoral alliance with SP and RLD. Under the understanding, BSP contested in 38 seats, SP in 37, RLD 3, while 2 were left for the Congress. Refusing to be part of the alliance, the grand old party decided to contest separately. Interestingly, a two-member panel of the Congress party has also blamed the alliance for Rahul Gandhi’s loss in Amethi, saying that while they refrained from fielding their candidates from the Gandhi bastion, the SP-BSP leaders did not provide the required support to ensure the Congress president’s victory, reported Hindustan Times.